Shilla Gold Crowns Return After 104 Years, Captivate 280,000 Visitors... From the "Trump Effect" to Pre-Opening Queues

Gyeongju National Museum special exhibition closed on the 22nd
All time slots sold out despite online reservation limits
Visitor numbers this year surge to 2.4 times last year's

Shilla gold crowns, brought together in one place for the first time in 104 years, attracted 280,000 visitors.

The Gyeongju National Museum announced on the 24th that a total of 285,401 people visited the special exhibition "Shilla Gold Crowns: Power and Prestige," which opened in November last year and closed on the 22nd.

From the outset, the exhibition drew a flood of visitors, creating the unusual phenomenon of people lining up before opening hours. A replica of the Cheonmachong gold crown, which had been presented to U.S. President Donald Trump at a Korea-U.S. summit held just before the opening, acted as a catalyst. Although the museum introduced an online reservation system and capped the number of visitors at 2,550 per day, every time slot was sold out, with queues stretching outside the exhibition hall during the final two weeks.

The gold crown fever led to an explosive increase in visitors to the museum as a whole. From January 1 to February 22 this year, the museum recorded 401,683 visitors. This is a 2.4-fold surge compared with the same period last year (169,464 visitors). In particular, during the four days of the Lunar New Year holiday (from the 14th to the 18th), 72,005 people visited the museum.

The museum plans to once again create a comprehensive stage for gold crown artifacts from Korea and abroad in 2035. It will be the first museum in Korea to plan a 10-year cycle exhibition dedicated to a specific type of artifact. Starting this year, it will present gold crowns in Yangsan, Gyeongsangnam-do, and Cheongdo, Gyeongsangbuk-do, and will hold special exhibitions in Paris, France, and Shanghai, China, highlighting Shilla culture and imprinting the essence of K-heritage on the global stage.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.